While most people associate PEDs with gargantuan sluggers and rocket-armed closers, Dee Gordon’s recent positive test for the steroid Turinabol shows that PED use is widespread, even among players you wouldn’t normally suspect. And, according to a report from ESPN’s Outside The Lines, more PED busts are on the way.

In a Spitter exclusive, one surprising PED user is making an effort to get ahead of the story. The following is a press release that was sent out earlier today by representatives of Tyrion Lannister:

Lo, these many nights when I have lain awake in my chamber, tossing about in my bedclothes, ruing my involvement in these sordid matters. For I was once attributed a great destiny, yet here I am, laid low by own hubris.

It was not that long ago that I was first introduced to your stick-and-ball game, and its attendant frustrations. I found that, despite my will and mental acuity, I was simply unable to make any headway into the game’s upper echelons. And you know what they say; ‘In the game of stick-and-ball, you either win, or you sit out half the season, collect a few million dollars less than you expected, and later sign a large free agent contract that is largely based on the accolades you accrued while taking PEDs.’

Well, my friends, they may call it a ‘game,’ but hear you me, it is more of a cruel bitch mistress, like a country whore whom you bed and fall in love with, and whose breasts you are sure to bare as often as possible in front of millions of people, but whom you then strangle while she’s tied up in your father’s bed. A ‘game?’ To that notion, I can only say, ‘Ha!’

You see, while I may be small of stature, I am large of heart, and it was that heart, along with my outsized ambition, that led me to this tragic end. When I first found that I was unfit for your League of Majors, I was distraught. My faith was shaken to its core. I felt like a total failure, and I thought that my only hope was to turn to something outside of the, to my mind, arbitrary strictures of etiquette and fair play. For, the night is dark and full of terrors… Wait, that’s not my line.

Anyway, in my desperation I turned to something that I now realize was fool’s gold, an empty promise filled with regret. I began using PEDs. This probably comes as a great shock to you, my loyal fans. You probably assumed that one of the Clegane brothers, or possibly Hodor, would be the one to make this sort of admission. Yet, here I stand… Right here. Look down… There you go.

At first, it was just here and there, when I needed a little extra edge. But, before I knew it, I was relying on PEDs all the time. They became more than a crutch for me. They were my rock. I am forever shamed, and I beg your forgiveness.

In my defense, however, I will add that I am far from the only one to have debased myself in such a way. Throughout Westeros and across the Narrow Sea, villainy of all kinds turns its foul head, only to drink of the forbidden ‘Clear.’

There’s Daenerys Targaryen and her Performance Enhancing Dragons; and the show’s casting team and their never-ending roster of Prancing European Dandies; and the writing team, with its staunch reliance on Petty Emotive Dialogue.

The list goes on. Which isn’t to say that being a part of such a large group of cheats absolves me of any moral onus. I deserve whatever opprobrium I receive. My goal in coming forward is simply to unveil that this ‘game’ in which we participate, as players and as fans, is a baldly greedy money-grab, where the traditional rules of polite society simply don’t apply.

For, the night is da… Excuse me. For, fortune, fame and power are our only true goals, at heart. And nowhere is that more apparent than in a made-for-cable television show that relies on boob-shots and sadistic violence to cover up its ludicrously melodramatic plot turns, slow pacing, and adolescent dialogue. Except, maybe, in professional sports.